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Echies of Texas 5 (It's the little things)


JamieLynn

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Joining the Paleontological Society of Austin has been such a good thing. I am learning more about where to look and what to look for! Experts are so....expert.  So we went to a place I had been before, but apparently I was not looking "small" enough. Although I did find some lovely Cretaceous crinoids on my first trip and a nice smashed Pygopyrina, this time, I looked even closer and found not only more crinoids (love those little stars!) but also a tiny Pygopyrina hancockensis and some Leptosalenia (juveniles supposedly), which is weird because no larger ones are apparently found at that site. Maybe they migrate somewhere else?  Anyways, they are tiny tiny tiny.  And I was super happy to find something new : a few plates of an Echinothurid. These echinoids apparently disarticulate once they expire so usually all you find are these little sections. Still pretty cool. Also, found another nice sized Coenholectypus and some nice examples of Salenia texana at another site nearby. A few days later, I was poking around a new to me site and found a lovely big crab claw, but my find of the day was ANOTHER tiny section of a Pseudodiadema. I am dying to find a full one, but they are apparently rather rare. This is the third "chunk" I have found. Someday soon....perhaps I'll find a whole one. But I"m happy with my "llittle things"  because it's the little things that make life such a big deal (to steal a phrase from the Austin band Timbuk 3)   Scale is inches

 

The Tinys: DSCN4352.thumb.JPG.9c938cf0a7ca010037befd7e2ed9b3e6.JPG

 

Echinodthurid plates: 

Echinoid.thumb.JPG.17f39e80440f1ff0c1b485fd94be8610.JPG

 

Coenholectypus

DSCN4303.thumb.JPG.73f4ebbdb0bc4fdc2eb8180a6804e396.JPG

 

Salenia texanas:

 DSCN4304.thumb.JPG.2c505451e4ccf7c22a30fd230170ea0b.JPG

DSCN4307.thumb.JPG.6401ec24064d50fe576c377fe966fa37.JPG

 

Pseudodiademas (the small bit I found yesterday, the larger bit was from last year)

DSCN4371.thumb.JPG.0d214137704f36ede2f3bbce284d4c72.JPG

 

Crinoid Isocrinus 

5d8f87878703a_CrinoidIsocrinus.thumb.JPG.cd298dece8b08a3833be0d403923f3ed.JPG

 

Some Crab Claws (not an echinoderm obviously, but I mention them in my post and you might just want to see them)

5d8f883718c34_CrabClaw.thumb.JPG.eb81fadccef8e53ae978891e46f66c9f.JPG

 

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Nice finds, Jamie.  The left "tiny" is a Leptosalenia sp., but the middle one is a Hyposalenia (likely) phillipsae.  The larger ones have been reclassified as Leptosalenia.  ;)

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The human mind has the ability to believe anything is true.  -  JJ

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wwhhhatttt??? YAY!! I found something new!!  Thank you John! Oh, I remember now...in the hypo the periproct is not lined up with the squiggly line, right? I didn't even think to look at them and yes, now I see it! 

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Great finds. Echinoids are one of my favorite things to find. We have a huge variety of them here in North Carolina like Texas does. 

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Bulldozers and dirt Bulldozers and dirt
behind the trailer, my desert
Them red clay piles are heaven on earth
I get my rocks off, bulldozers and dirt

Patterson Hood; Drive-By Truckers

 

image.png.0c956e87cee523facebb6947cb34e842.png May 2016  MOTM.png.61350469b02f439fd4d5d77c2c69da85.png.a47e14d65deb3f8b242019b3a81d8160.png.b42a25e3438348310ba19ce6852f50c1.png May 2012 IPFOTM5.png.fb4f2a268e315c58c5980ed865b39e1f.png.1721b8912c45105152ac70b0ae8303c3.png.2b6263683ee32421d97e7fa481bd418a.pngAug 2013, May 2016, Apr 2020 VFOTM.png.f1b09c78bf88298b009b0da14ef44cf0.png.af5065d0585e85f4accd8b291bf0cc2e.png.72a83362710033c9bdc8510be7454b66.png.9171036128e7f95de57b6a0f03c491da.png Oct 2022

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19 hours ago, JohnJ said:

Glad you remembered that post. I was trying to explain it to Jamie that day but without an image it was hard and I hadn't yet found any good examples to show.

 

PS the squigglies are the "ambs" short for ambulacra which are the five sections with the pores. The sections between the ambs are the interambulacra or "interambs".  Took me a while to get all this down as well.

 

Second PS, there are larger Leptosalenia texana at that site to be found on occasion. But never as big as they come in the top of Unit 2, the "Salenia texana" zone which was our second stop that day.

 

There is a nice Pseudodiadema out there with your name on it. I'm sure.

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3 hours ago, Monica said:

Adorable stuff!  :wub:

 

And congrats on adding a new echinoid species to your list of finds!!! :yay-smiley-1:

 Thanks!! I've been kind of bummed that I haven't found anything new for seems like a year! hahahhah! 

 

 

@erose - thank you for the info and the encouragement! I SHALL find that pesudodiadema! 

 

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